McKRELL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-04-19 published
Agnes JACKS,
RingettePromoter: 1923-2005
As a champion of a sport known as the little sister of hockey,
she took up the banner from Sam
JACKS, its inventor
By Allison
LAWLOR,
Special to The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, April
19, 2005, Page S9
In the early days, enthusiastic young girls and women flooded
onto outdoor rinks in northern Ontario, wearing discarded hockey
skates and clutching broken hockey sticks. Up and down the ice
they skated, chasing a ring. Most of the players didn't wear
uniforms, and some preferred pink sweaters and matching pink
sticks to keep the neighbourhood boys away from the rink.
It was 1963, and ringette was born. Agnes
JACKS was there watching
the emergence of the game her husband had invented to give girls
and women their own winter team sport. Over the next 40 years,
she saw it grow from a handful of young women in northern Ontario
to a presence in half a dozen countries around the world. In
Canada alone, it counts more than 25,000 players competing on
nearly 2,000 teams. Even today, the sport is primarily for women
and girls.
Over the years, Ms.
JACKS became known as the ringette ambassador
for Canada. She tirelessly travelled the world to boost the sport
that Mr. JACKS invented in North Bay when he was the city's parks
and recreation director. When he died of cancer in 1975 at 59,
she continued her husband's legacy.
"In the early 1960s, there was a great need for girls' and women's
sports," Ms.
JACKS told the Kitchener-Waterloo Record in 2003.
"Sam could see the need."
Mr. JACKS patched together hockey and basketball rules to create
a fluid, non-contact game that soon became one of the fastest
team sports on ice. Six years after he invented ringette, which
has been called the little sister to hockey, the Ontario Ringette
Association was founded with a government grant of $229.27. At
the time, it numbered 1,500 players in 14 communities.
The sport boomed after the mid-1970s when the other provinces
took an interest and formed ringette associations. In particular,
it gained a firm footing in Quebec and first appeared there in
MountRoyal where it was introduced by Herb
LINDER, a good friend
of the JACKS. In the late 1970s, the United States also started
leagues. By all accounts, former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Roger
NEILSON used ringette during the late 1970s to vary routines
at practice. That got the attention of the then coach of the
Czechoslovak national hockey team, who took home information
on the game and adopted it in training and for his country's
universities.
Ms. JACKS, who became honorary president of the International
Ringette Association, didn't play the game herself but sponsored
trophies and scholarships for outstanding players, coaches and
officials and faithfully attended as many ringette tournaments
and championship events as she could. In March, she was at the
Ontario provincial AA championships in Ottawa. Young athletes
flocked to her to ask for autographs and for words of encouragement.
"She always told us that we were 'her girls' and you believed
it," said Laura
WARNER, ringette's Team Canada captain. The one
bit of advice she repeatedly gave to the girls was "stay out
of the penalty box." When she said this to you, said Ms.
WARNER,
you felt she was honestly encouraging you to play ringette in
the true spirit of the game -- fair play, sportsmanship and teamwork.
Like hockey, ringette is played on ice with skates and sticks
and six players on each team -- a goalie and five skaters. But
instead of a puck, the players pursue a rubber ring, which must
be shot into a standard hockey net. The ring is passed to another
player, rather than carried from zone to zone, all of which makes
it a very team-oriented game. Wingers carry bladeless, red sticks
so that an official can identify them if they illegally enter
their own zone. Defence players have blue sticks and are not
allowed in the attacking zone. The rules allow for fast play
and little congestion in any zone. While hockey has become a
game associated with body contact, ringette is not. A player
receives a penalty for any body contact.
Like boys' hockey, ringette is divided into divisions: petite
for girls 10 years and under, tweens for 12 and under, juniors
for 14 and under, belles for 17 and under, debs for 18 and under
and ladies for those over 20. It is not uncommon to find 25-year-old
players who first took up the game at 6. Some dedicated veterans
are in their mid-50s.
When they first take up the sport, young girls can be self-conscious
about wearing boys' skates but soon stop worrying about it. Eventually,
they give up wearing figure skates -- even for public skating
and some abandon figure skating in favour of ringette.
Ms. WARNER remembers the first time she saw Ms.
JACKS.
She was
just 14 years old and excited to be at the opening ceremony of
the national ringette championships. Suddenly everyone around
her stood and started cheering. She looked up and saw a petite,
Scottish woman walking onto the stage.
"As soon as she started talking you couldn't not be drawn to
her. "This [was] someone with an unparalleled love of the sport,"
Ms. WARNER said. "You could feel her love for the game."
In 2001, Ms.
JACKS was appointed a member of the Order of Canada
for her devotion to the sport. "She is an example of integrity,
selflessness and devotion," the citation reads. "For over 30
years, she has promoted ringette as a medium for girls and women
to benefit from the physical activity and personal growth derived
from team sports... She has become a goodwill ambassador, imparting
the importance of perseverance, good conduct and fair play to
tens of thousands of young athletes."
Agnes MacKRELL was a Scottish lass who, during the Second World
War, moved to England to work in a munitions plant. It was at
a dance where she met Sam
JACKS, a young Canadian soldier and
recreation director in the army. After the war, he took her back
home with him to Canada. They arrived in Halifax and made their
way to Toronto and then in 1946 to North Bay. While Ms.
JACKS
didn't see her husband's dream of ringette becoming an Olympic
sport fulfilled, she did see it inch closer to that goal. She
remained faithful to the sport and its community until the end
and had planned to attend the 2005 Canadian Ringette Championships
that would up in Winnipeg on Saturday.
"I love the game," Ms.
JACKS told a reporter in 2003. "It has
everything a sport needs -- skill, speed, passion and no checking."
Agnes JACKS was born in Scotland on August 17, 1923. She died
of heart failure on April 1, 2005, at the North Bay General Hospital.
She was 81. She leaves her sons Barry, Bruce and Brian; three
brothers and two sisters; 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

McKRELL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-04-07 published
WARING,
Elizabeth (née
MacKRELL)
Peacefully at Specialty Care, Mississauga on April 5, 2005 at
the age of 78. Beloved and devoted wife of 50 years to Edward.
Cherished mother of Janet and her husband John
DAWSON,
Linda
and her husband David
BATCH,
Kenneth and his wife
LyndaWILSON.
Very proud grandmother of Alexander, Lindsay, Karen and Douglas.
Much loved sister of Anne, John (Maureen), Arthur, Edward (Joy),
Patricia and the late Agnes, Ellen and James. The family will
receive Friends at the McEachnie Funeral Home, 28 Old Kingston
Road, Ajax (Pickering Village), 905-428-8488 from 2 to 4 and
7 to 9 p.m. Friday, April 8, 2005. Funeral Mass to be held at
St. Isaac Jogues Roman Catholic Church, 1148 Finch Avenue, Pickering
on Saturday, April 9, 2005 at 1 p.m. A reception to follow at
the Funeral Home. Should family and Friends so desire, donations
to the Canadian Cancer Society would be greatly appreciated.
A book of condolence may be signed at www.mceachnie-funeral.ca